May 2008

Show Directories in Column View
Mac Tip #340, 28 May 2008

The strength of Column View is to show you a file or folder in its place amongst all your files and folders. Column View is mainly about relationships: this folder contains these folders which in turn contain these files.

My screenshot shows a Finder window with one file selected on the right, and all the files and folders around and ‘above’ it. It very clearly shows the hierarchy for a selected file.

To view columns go to the View menu in Finder and choose ‘as Columns’ or press Command 3. If you display the Toolbar on Finder windows, you can of course switch views with the Views buttons.

At the bottom of each column divider is a small ‘11′ — a pair of parallel vertical lines. Use these to resize the columns.

Drag or Option Drag

Drag the ‘11′ to right or left to make a single column wider or narrower. Hold down the Option key to affect all columns in the same way while you drag. In my screenshot I’ve made the leftmost column extremely wide.

Double click or Option Double click

Double click the ‘11′ to make the column an appropriate width for its contents. It may make it wider or narrower, depending on whether it was too narrow or too wide to begin with. Hold down the Option key while double clicking to set all columns to the same width at the same time. My screenshot shows the effect.

View Options

Columns are sorted by Name in alphabetical order, but call up the View Options window to change that. My screenshot shows the possibilities for sorting.

At the top of the View Options window is the name of the folder you have currently selected. In my screenshot you can see that in fact I have a file selected so the View Options window shows the name of the folder that contains the selected file.

Choose whether or not to always open that particular folder in Column View, and what size the text should be.

· ·

Then come 3 checkboxes that interact to affect what you see. In the first of 3 screenshots I’ve selected to not show any icons at all. The name of each file or folder has no icon to the left of it.

In the second screenshot of the series I have elected to show the icons but not the icon preview. The icons to the left of each name are generic. I have also chosen to show the Preview column. In the column to the right of the selection is a preview of the selected item, together with detailed information about the file.

The final screenshot shows the icon previews: the icon to the left of each filename is representative of the contents or nature of the file or folder.

List view and Icon view, as explained in previous Tips, both show you all the files contained in a single folder. Column View reveals the relationships between files.

In the next Tip we explore Cover Flow View.

Column View the movie

I’m still experimenting with making movies and would love to get your feedback.

View the larger Column View Tips movie - large (23 Mb, .mov file) or the smaller Column View Tips movie - small (12 Mb, .mov file). Note: give it time to load — it will play eventually.

Alternatively, download the Column View Tips Movie (zipped, 20 Mb). After it’s downloaded to your machine, double click it to expand the zipped file and then double click the movie to play it.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Please bookmark this Tip to help others find it

Hide Sites

Show Information in Finder List View
Mac Tip #339, 21 May 2008

List View

My screenshot shows a Finder window containing various folders, with one folder’s contents also listed. I chose to view these as a list. To view a list go to the View menu in Finder and choose ‘as List’ or press Command 2. If you display the Toolbar on Finder windows, you can of course switch views with the Views buttons.

I have my Listed files sorted by Name in alphabetical order. To reverse the order I could click on the column header — in this case Name. Sort any column by clicking on its header. Click again to reverse the order.

The name column is always displayed, and always on the left, but drag any other column by its header to move it to a new position. In my second screenshot I’ve changed the order of the columns around and sorted by Date Modified, with the newest items at the top.

To display more columns and more information go the Finder’s View menu: Show View Options (Command J). It offers several options that are different from those for Icon View. My third screenshot shows a Finder window with all options turned on and the View Options window obscuring some of the information.

In my screenshot you can see that I chose for this folder window to always open in List view, with small icons, and 10 point text — that was really only so I could fit everything into the screenshot.

I set all columns to display. Note, for example, that the VersionTracker Downloads folder was created on 3 November 2006, but modified ‘today’, when I saved new files inside it.

The size of all items (in Megabytes) is displayed, and for software a Version number is available. Where I’ve labelled an item the colour is displayed as a background behind the row of information, but also the name of the label is displayed.

While I don’t bother changing the label names, some people use them for words like ‘important’, ‘urgent’, ‘backups’ and so on. One of the most ancient MacTips (Change the label name, Mac Tip #12/18-July-2001) explained briefly how to do this for Mac OS 9. The movie it refers to no longer exists though, and the instructions are a little different from Mac OS X. I’ll write up new instructions in a future Tip.

Relative dates uses words like ‘today’ and ‘yesterday’ until files are a bit older. This makes it easy to spot recently changed or downloaded files in a list.

Note the handy information in the Comments column for images I’ve created myself: Mac OS X creates an HTML tag that authors can just drop into any web page.

For those who don’t like clutter, my final screenshot shows a Finder window with all columns turned off, large icons and large text. Really, you can customise that Finder window to be just how you like it.

But wait, there’s more… Yet to come: Column View and Cover Flow.

Update: I’ve been experimenting with making a movie and would love to get your feedback.

View the List View Tips movie (13 Mb, .mov file). Note: give it time to load — it will play eventually.

Note: this is an experimental movie, made with a demo version of ScreenFlow, so it has the words ScreenFlow Demo emblazoned across it. If you all respond well to this concept I’ll pay up for the software and be able to remove that banner. Please leave helpful comments below.

Alternatively, download the List View Tips Movie (zipped, 10.6 Mb). After it’s downloaded to your machine, double click it to expand the zipped file and then double click the movie to play it.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Please bookmark this Tip to help others find it

Hide Sites

Enlarge Finder Icons
Mac Tip #338, 14 May 2008

Mac OS X Leopard gives us all kinds of options for viewing Finder windows. The next few Tips will help you make the most of any Finder window.

Icon View

My screenshot shows a Finder window containing 9 images — screenshots of how my wireless connection is set up. I chose to view these files as icons. To view icons go to the View menu in Finder and choose as Icons or press Command 1.

I like my files tidy, and arranged in alphabetical order, so I also went to the Finder’s View menu and chose Clean Up and Arrange By > Name (Command Control 1).

I could instead choose to arrange by Date Modified, Date Created, Size, Kind or Label, each with its own key combination.

Of special interest is the bottom item in the Finder’s View menu: Show View Options (Command J). Choose that item and a world of options opens up to you.

In my screenshot you can see that I chose for this folder window to always open in icon view, with icons 48 pixels by 48, and stacked close together on a grid.

I set the text size to be fairly large (16 points), and to appear to the right of the icon, instead of below it.

I opted to show item info, so the size of my images (in pixels) is displayed, as is a preview of each screenshot.

In the View Options window the Arrange by Name button puts file 02 below file 01 (ie it sorts down then across), where in my first screenshot you can see that the View By Name menu item put file 02 to the right of file 01 (ie it sorts across then down). You can also sort by other criteria.

Finally, I set a non-white background color for the window, but I could also have selected an image.

If you like to view some or all of your Finder windows by icon, then explore the View Options window.

If you prefer to view Finder windows as a list or some other way, then watch out for future Tips.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Please bookmark this Tip to help others find it

Hide Sites